554 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



We still have an old problem with us — a problem that has been 

 such since the days when William Penn first entered the woods, — 

 and that is forest fire. It was formerly thought that tires were a 

 necessity, that dead leaves and dead wood might be destroyed, and 

 this idea was not peculiar to Pennsylvania. The effort of the De- 

 partment of Forestry has been to teach the peo])le that fires are not 

 necessary; in fact that they are unnecessary and that every fire is 

 a distinctive loss. Progress is being made, and the people are be- 

 ginning to see that forest fires mean loss, and nothing else. So far 

 as the Department is concerned, it does its utmost to prevent fires 

 on reserve lands, but they will come. You know how easily a forest 

 fire is started under favorable conditions, and how hard it is to 

 convince people that fire will not only destroy roughage but also 

 the forests of the State. Just so long as people will not take a rea- 

 sonable view, so long we will have fires. When we begin to realize 

 that fires mean loss, we will have fewer of them. This is the result 

 of education. When people do not understand things, they will not 

 deviate from an established course. When they are made wise, you 

 will find a new response, and generally in the right direction. This 

 has been proved with the reserves in Franklin county. When fires 

 were once one of the most prevalent things, they are now practically 

 unknown. 



The Department has been able to do some work in assisting in the 

 eradication of the disease that is destroying chestnut timber. You 

 have heard something of this at your meeting. We are directed by 

 law to do what we can. The forest reserves are being thoroughly 

 searched for the blight and where found it is destroyed. No specific 

 remedy has been found. The only effective thing we know today 

 is to cut down the infected trees and burn them, even to the stump 

 and branches. However, where the tree has marketable timber in 

 it, the bark is removed and the wood put to commercial use. 



I don't know whether you are familiar with this fungus. I have 

 here a number of twigs of trees in which this disease is present. If 

 you care to look at them they are here for that purpose. Now, I am 

 not an alarmist, and do not want you to think so, but, I am confident 

 of this one thing. That unless the chestnut blight is stopped in its 

 march across the State, it will destroy all Pennsylvania chestnut 

 trees, and wall do it in a few years. The value of the chestnut tim- 

 ber is too great to let it go by the board. The Legislature saw this, 

 provided for a Commission, and the Commission is producing results. 

 It is known that the chestnut tree blight is not, as was at first sup- 

 posed, an insect, but a fungus, which attacks the bark of the tree, 

 cuts off the circulation, and finally girdles and thus kills the tree. 

 In this bottle is a piece of chestnut branch covered with pustules of 

 the blight. This has been in the bottle forty-one months, and j^ou 

 will see the disease still has considerable vitality. We had these 

 bottles in Pittsburg last fall, and the tops were tied on to prevent 

 the spread of spores. Here is a specimen which has a split in the bark 

 on one side. Just how the split was made we don't know, but be- 

 lieve that the spores of the disease were carried there and then 

 began their work right and left through the bark, until the tree was 

 girdled. This fungus belongs to the same order of plants as the 

 black knot on the plum trees, or the ergot in the rye fields. It is 



